Composition studies has evolved into a recognized discipline with its own conventions for research and publication, its own scholarly standards and expectations, and its own procedures for reviewing the work of the discipline (through professional organizations, meetings, and journals). Composition research has been characterized since the beginning by its diversity, drawing on several fields of study and many methods of investigation. Because of this diversity, and because composition research has reached outside the traditional methods of literary studies, this statement describes, for administrators outside of the discipline the range of scholarly activity in composition.
Read the full statement, Scholarship in Composition: Guidelines for Faculty, Deans, and Department Chairs (1987)